Ohio's minimum wage will be bumped up beginning January 1st(Photo: Flickr)

The new year will bring a small pay hike for thousands of Ohio workers who are covered under the stateâ€™s minimum wage law.

Ohio’s minimum stands at $7.70 an hour, but starting January 1 that will rise 15 cents to $7.85.

The reason for the pay hike — an automatic yearly cost-of-living raise that Ohio voters approved six years ago. The annual adjustment was at the heart of a constitutional amendment labor unions and their allies placed on the ballot with a petition drive.

Since the official inflation rate rose 1.7 percent from September 2011 to this past September, that’s how much the state minimum wage will go up for next year.

Exempted from the state minimum wage are workers younger than 16 and those working for small companies. Those exempt workers are covered by the federal minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25 an hour.